


Hope

by Bounding-Heart (Brief_and_Dreamy)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Comfort, Depression, F/M, Love, Post-War, Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-01
Updated: 2019-11-01
Packaged: 2021-01-16 16:53:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21274529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brief_and_Dreamy/pseuds/Bounding-Heart
Summary: Light in the darkness





	Hope

**Author's Note:**

  * For [feelsandotps](https://archiveofourown.org/users/feelsandotps/gifts).

> Thanks to siderumincaelo for betaing so quickly! <3
> 
> This is for Clara for her birthday. She gave me the prompt "hope".

If he didn't move, if he kept his face pressed into the pillow, the entirety of him buried beneath Ron's orange Cannons quilt, if he tried not to breathe… But no. The dream stuttered, then popped out of existence. Harry tried to hold onto a shard of it, to keep the feeling – sunlight and freedom, looking down from his broom, someone saying… No. It was gone. He curled up, bracing himself for what always came next. 

A cloud mushroomed inside him, filled him up, a physical sensation. Black. Cold. Rotten. He couldn't fight it. It clamped its skeletal fingers around the part of him that fought, and squeezed. It let loose a filmstrip of images, memories, waving and curling through his mind. Remus and Tonks on the floor, so still. Colin Creevy, tiny and broken. Snape, bleeding, begging Harry to look at him. Molly, weeping over Fred. 

The Great Hall had been full of bodies. Bodies of people Harry hadn't protected. He'd been too late. 

It was more than that, though – more than the guilt that held him down with leaden weight. He was tired. It was as if years of fear and anger had finally caught up to him. He was fucking exhausted. And given that he was living in a house full of people who had real reason to grieve, he carried a great deal of shame for his own sorrow. Molly, purple circles under her eyes dark as bruises, had made a valiant attempt to draw him out of Ron's room. But Harry couldn't. He's told her he was ill. She cupped his cheek. She smiled, love and understanding radiating from her wan face. And Harry spent the hour after she returned to the kitchen biting his pillow to keep himself from weeping. 

He pulled the quilt tighter around his body. Maybe he could fall asleep again and escape.

The door clicked open and someone entered. Ron and Hermione were still in Australia, so it couldn’t be either of them. The footsteps were too light to be Molly's. Ginny, then. He peeled back the quilt and peered out of his cocoon at her. He'd pulled the curtains shut, so she appeared as little more than a grey shape in the dimly lit room. And yet, even that, her shape, made the darkness draw back. Just a little. 

'Merlin, Harry.' She kicked the door shut while waving her hand in front of her face. 'It smells like trolls' feet in here.'

Harry kept the quilt pulled up to his chin. 'When have you ever smelt trolls' feet?' His voice sounded embarrassingly croaky.

'I grew up with six brothers. That's close enough.' She marched over and yanked the curtains apart, then opened the window. Early summer sunlight flooded the room. Harry cringed away from it. 

Ginny plopped down on the bed and nudged him, not gently, with her hip to give herself enough room to sit comfortably. Harry obediently shuffled back. 'You're like Devil's Snare,' she said. 'Scared of sunlight. Or maybe a vampire.' 

'Watch out,' said Harry, thoughtlessly. 'Maybe I'll bite you.' She gave him a look that made him blush. 'I don't know. I'm tired.'

'Yeah,' she said. 'Lying in bed all day will do that to you.'

Harry frowned. She wore a blue dress patterned with small yellow flowers, her legs and feet bare. Her hair hung long over her shoulder, gleaming bronze now with the curtains open. Big brown eyes, concerned and a little irritated. The ghost of a smirk. Mine, he thought, like he hadn't allowed himself to in over a year. But how could someone so beautiful belong to him? How could he deserve her? Especially when he'd let her brother die. 

She sighed. 'Are you ever going to get up?'

'No.' She shoved his shoulder and he rocked on his side. 'I'm sorry,' he said. 'I'm just…'

'I know,' she said, her voice soft. 'You're blaming yourself for everything, aren't you?'

The quilt had become oppressively hot, so he pushed it down, then ran his fingers through his hair. Wow, it needed a wash. 'Only the things that are my fault.'

'Such as?' she asked, raising an eyebrow. Behind her, a trio of tiny white flower petals swept into the room on a gust of breeze.

Harry didn't want to talk about it. He didn't want to open that door in front of her, let her see the mess behind it. He shrugged. 

With a fond smile, she pushed some hair off his face. 'You stupid idiot.'

'Yeah,' he said. 'That's me.'

'Scoot over, stupid idiot.' She pushed at his shoulder again. Harry tugged the quilt up and sidled towards the wall to give her space. She lay down beside him, head cradled on her bent arm. 

She wasn't wearing her usual perfume, but instead smelt of soap and warmth. Despite everything Harry felt something stir inside him, a soft kitten purr of desire. 'What if your mum comes in?'

'She won't. And even if she did, she'd be glad I'm in here with you. She's… worried.'

Harry rubbed at his face. He didn't want that. He didn't want anyone worrying about him. They had enough to deal with. 'I'll come down for dinner later. Have a bath and stuff.' He imagined sitting at the table with the rest of the Weasleys, the clink of utensils as they ate in unnatural quiet. The dread made him feel even more guilty. 

'Harry,' she said, fingers light on his arm, stroking, leaving a trail of goosepimples in their wake. She gave him a direct, intentional look, that flame at the back of her eyes that pulled at him like a moth. 'Everyone at the Battle, everyone who stayed to fight, we all chose that.'

'Some did.' Her lips were a particular shade of pink. No one else in the world had lips that colour. 

The flame in her eyes grew fiercer. 'Fred did. Do you even remember him? Do you think you could have stopped him from fighting if you'd tried?' 

Harry thought about Fred. His white face streaked with blood, still smiling. Fred laughing with Percy a moment before the explosion. 'If we hadn't had to fight at the castle. If I'd been quicker in finding the diadem.' 

She moved a little closer. 'You think it was your battle. Yours alone. Don't you?'

'It was.' Harry hated the tremor in his voice. He swallowed. 'I had to face him. I'm the only one who could. I didn't have to drag everyone else along–'

She put her fingers against his lips. 'You weren't there. At Hogwarts. You don't know what it was like. What they were like. The Carrows.' She shuddered. 'The things they did. Such small children. Harry. We _needed_ to fight them. Him. It wasn't just about you.'

He knew she was right, but it didn't help. And he was still here, still alive, when so many others weren't. 'I…' He whispered, shocked that the words were leaving his mouth. 'If so many people had to die, then why not me? Why am I still here?'

Her mouth hardened. She punched him on the shoulder. 

'Ow,' he drew back, eyeing her, and rubbed at the sore spot. 'Why–'

'That would have been just lovely for me,' Ginnys said. 'Oh, just wonderful. For fuck's sake, Harry. When I thought you were dead, that he'd killed you, I…' She rolled onto her back and took a breath. With an angry gesture, she swiped at her eyes, then turned her face away. 'I wanted to tear him apart with my bare hands. So you'd better be glad you weren't dead, because I'd have had a go at him. Believe me.'

Upon seeing her tears, Harry wrapped his arm around her and buried his face against her neck. His purr of desire grew more insistent. 'I'm sorry,' he said.

'Shut up.' She rolled back onto her side to face him and pressed their foreheads together. 

Harry closed his eyes, allowing himself the pleasure of being close to her. He pictured her at the Battle, running full speed towards Voldemort, wand raised, shrieking a battle cry, and grinned. 'You fought Bellatrix.'

'I'd have had her too.' He heard laughter in her voice. 'If Mum hadn't pushed me away.' 

'I'm sure you would have.' He drew back enough to see her face. Some hair stuck to her cheek, caught in tears, but she smiled. He looked at her, and looked and looked. He slid his hand around the back of her neck and threaded his fingers through her hair. 'Ginny.' He took a heavy breath. 

'It's awful now,' she said. 'It awful for all of us. But it won't be forever. And that's because of you. Because of what you did, Harry. We have a future.' She nodded, something earnest, almost desperate in her expression. 'You and me. We have a future. And it's going… It's going to be wonderful.'

Harry felt his own eyes sting, but blinked it away. 'Yeah,' he said. The warmth of her body slid through him, feathering through the darkness, chasing it away. Like light. Like a Patronus. 'Ginny,' he said again, then pulled her close and kissed her.


End file.
